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ITV’s latest thriller, Hollington Drive is a star-studded look at the darkness that lurks in a perfect suburb.
The Hollington Drive cast is directed by Anna Maxwell Martin and Rachael Stirling, who play sisters Theresa and Helen. Their co-dependent relationship is put to the test when a child in their seemingly idyllic neighborhood goes missing – and they might find out who was involved.
Emma Cox spoke with Hollington Drive creator Sophie Petzal, who also created the Irish crime drama Blood, to learn more about the dark family thriller, goofy comedy, and why thrillers have such a “purple patch” .
Where did the idea for Hollington Drive ccomes from ?
On the back of Blood, which was my drama on Channel 5, I really got down to writing authentic, personal and family stories. I found it to be such a rewarding way to center a thriller. It also happened to me at the time to think of brotherhood. I’m a twin and it’s one of the most precious relationships of my life. I have to caution that the relationship between my characters Theresa and Helen has very little, hopefully, to do with the relationship between me and my sister!
But I just felt that brotherhood is seen a lot on TV shows, and it’s seen as sexy and active, but brotherhood is just a description. A woman’s defining relationship onscreen is usually a partner, so that’s something I really wanted to write about. Your brother or sister is the person you probably share the worst things with, because they might also be the person who looks a bit too much like you.
So I had the idea of two sisters who live very co-dependent lives, who live very close to each other, who are in each other’s pockets. And then they find out that their two children may have been involved in something terrible, and they decide to keep it a secret, which leads to an ever-growing conspiracy of stress, secrets and lies.
Tell us a little more about Theresa (Anna Maxwell Martin) and Helen (Rachael Sterling).
When we’re as a family, we fall into our typical hierarchical roles and that’s something I feel between these two characters. Theresa is very dependent on Helen, even though from the outside it seems that she has a lot of sex together. She has a very nice life, a very nice house, a very nice partner who takes great care of her, but she stays hooked on her sister and her sister is very comfortable in the role of taking care of her . They have a fixed dynamic of co-dependence which influences the way they act, think and behave. This is what brings them together, but also in a way separates them.
What is the family dynamic that you think fits this kind of thriller really well?
I love thrillers, they’re my favorite dramas, but I’m less interested in telling police-directed thrillers right now. I love these shows too, but what I’m really interested in is the high stakes character driven drama where seemingly normal people are exposed to something horrific. See what these major explosive events are doing to us as people, as communities, and ask ourselves what we might do when the worst happens to us.
I love stories that have a dilemma at the center of them, where you are afraid that you are involved in something terrible and what you do about it.
What is the terrible event that is happening?
All I can say is one child is missing and Theresa and Helen suspect their children have something to do with it, and they go to great lengths to try to deal with it. I can’t say more than that or I’ll get my hand slapped!
Tell me about the casting …
Anna and Rachael have a wonderful chemistry and a wonderful relationship because they’ve worked together before on The Bletchley Circle.
We were so lucky. Anna is just one of the most outstanding actors working in the country by the minute and it’s absolutely amazing to work with her. And Rachael is so phenomenal and brings such weight and seriousness to her work. He’s such an amazing presence and he’s also one of the sweetest, kindest, funniest people.
We’ve been very lucky with the rest of the cast as well: we have Jonas Armstrong and Jodie McNee and Peter McDonald and Ken Nwosu and Jim Howick, which is just ridiculous. These are people who should all be running their own ITV shows. And kids, we’ve been lucky with these brilliant kids.
How would you describe the tone? The blood was very disturbing …
I like things to be funny enough in a weird and uncomfortable way and I’m always aware that people don’t fall for the tropes of TV drama thrillers and say the same things they all say. I love that they make weird choices, so I hope that sounds a bit exaggerated. And this is also reflected in the frame as they live in quite a spectacular environment. We have the kitchen island and everything and the ladies dress really well. I hope it looks a bit brighter than Blood just because of the nature of the setting, but yes absolutely I still wish there was a feeling of growing fear.
All your actors also excel in comedy …
I know, and now I’m like, “Oh my God, we created this expectation.” But yes, Anna is hilarious. They are all amazing dramatic actors but they are all very funny too. When playing or rehearsing, we’d say, “We could definitely do a sitcom, a really funny version of that.” But the balance is for us to determine when this stressed-out woman is funny enough, and where do we want to play her more seriously.
Anna herself obviously had very developed thoughts about the character and how she wanted to play her and Rachael is really funny.
I think my favorite moments are things that really shouldn’t be funny, but end up being funny just because someone said the wrong thing, or because it’s really embarrassing. Like, the dog bumps the pillow at the funeral, or there’s a guy gleefully talking about pedophiles when a kid is missing, which is so inappropriate.
Thrillers have such a purple stain right now. Do you know why this is?
I have something to say about how arrogant awards are these days, and the fact that David Tennant wasn’t nominated for a BAFTA for Des – he would have if it was on Netflix. And Whitehouse Farm and things like that should rack up the rewards.
I know for a lot of people real life crime is a little tired and “here we go again”, but it gets six million viewers every time and ITV does it really, really well. Really classy. And I think they grew up with that too. Whitehouse Farm was so sophisticated and compelling, and incredibly popular.
The ambition of my show is to be sophisticated but it is also to reach a large audience, and to attract and capture millions of people. It’s very easy to go wrong, but I think ITV did it right and is having a very, very good spell.
With increasingly complex twists and turns on shows like Line of Duty, Do you feel any pressure to speed up these twists and turns in your work?
I think you probably find the zeitgeist reflected in your own taste. So rather than thinking “The audience wants this,” I’m the audience too and I’m going to put twists on it because that’s what I love. [Executive producer] Jonathan Fisher’s TV tastes are shamelessly dominant and he’s an absolute Midsomer Murders aficionado. It’s his bread and butter, he knows this stuff inside out, so he’s very, very smart as to how this kind of drama is supposed to play out.
Then I come up with a slightly more shifted approach, from left field. Together, hopefully, we’ve created something that looks weird, but works the way mainstream dramas are supposed to, that has the hooks in the right places that keep you coming back for more.
There’s all these incredibly smart, fancy, expensive, A-list run shows on every streamer, and then something like Vigil comes along and we were all like, “This is what I actually wanted – a drama where something. something really stupid and fantastic is happening ”. This is not an affront to Vigil, Besides.
You don’t always have to be perfectly sane. You just have to be a lot of fun and promise the unknown. It’s that feeling when you look and say, “I can’t believe this just happened. What will happen next? “ People just want to be entertained no matter how big and smart or humble the show is. It’s just about having fun.
British dramas sometimes get a hard blow compared to Americans …
Yes. But I think when we do addicting and classy, I think we’re better than anyone. Watch Line of Duty at its best. I watched Line of Duty more than any other show. Already. I watched the series three about eight times. I still think Sherlock is one of the greatest things ever. It was the drama that wanted me that made me want to go to television.
Another thing that we do really well is these big one-off thrillers that nobody remembers in a year or two, but everyone is obsessed when it airs. As the replacement, one of whom was on maternity leave. Everyone was talking about it.
We’re pretty good at these big, really splashy thrillers that get everyone talking and then just disappear.
Doctor Foster was another, especially the dinner table scene …
Yes! And I say this with a lot of love in my heart, there is something about our dramas that is sometimes a bit like a Latin soap opera. It’s kind of like “Oh my God, this is so ridiculous”. Our current soap opera is often meaningful and grounded, so I love our splashy dramas. And I think we’re not that obsessed with reality. Think about the service line, Can you imagine being as boring as sitting there thinking “Yeah, but they don’t carry guns like that” or “They would never go into the building”. It does not matter. Right from the start, the creator tells you subtext: “It’s a world in which anything can happen. Hold on to your seats. We are not constrained by the parameters of reality, and therefore nothing will surprise you.
I think there is a whole appetite for this stuff that is just a little crazy.
Hollington Drive airs on ITV Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET. Looking for something else to watch? Check out our TV guide or visit our dedicated drama hub for the latest news.
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